Episode 618 - The grass is always Greener
Jan 15, 2023
The Saying goes that The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Fence. Envy and jealously are destructive, negative feelings that either lead to bad outcomes or just make you feel pretty crappy. It especially affects creators! We get down about our artwork, our writing, the popularity of someone else's comic etc and we wish WE were as good as them and wonder why we aren't… maybe we're just not as good? If we could only just have their talent, their luck, their skill then WE'D be awesome too. it's just not fair…
Topics and Show Notes
Banes heard a pretty cool solution to this on a podcast once. The idea is that you CAN have those things you're envious off, you can have all of their cool traits, popularity, all the good stuff, but ONLY if you're also willing to accept all the crap in those person's lives as well. Would it really be worth it? To swap your life completely with theirs and not to be yourself any longer?
Or in a more realistic sense, you can look at those people who're beautiful and thin, or big and buff and muscular, those people with fantastic guitar skills, parkour champions, amazing athletes and dancers, and envy what they have… But YOU can have that as well, YOU can be like that, you just have to put in the thousands of hours of work it requires to have those skills, the thousands of dollars of beauty products, training and surgery, physical complications, the injuries, all the struggle and privation, all the denying yourself of life's many pleasures, tasty foods, TV watching time, time with friends and family… Because that's usually the true cost of the things with envy in others. The difference is that they're prepared to pay it.
Even super wealthy people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos paid a cost to get where they are: would you be prepared to make those bad deals, to cheat and scam strangers, friends, family, exploit others for your own personal gain again and again and again, are you prepared to wear that on your conscious and your soul? If so then the billionaire life is for you. :)
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Silences Echo - A sophisticated piano jazz bar, with a faint touch of latin rhythm… almost a tango. People dancing close, tension in the air, the energy is crisp and flowing with this short, punchy tune!
Topics and shownotes
Links
Banes' excellent and encouraging newspost on his Cure for Jealously - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/11/the-cure-for-jealousy/
Featured comic:
Meatware - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/jan/10/featured-comic-meatware/
Featured music:
Silences Echo - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Silences_Echo_/ - by Hykarige, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/banes
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 616 - Happy New years!
Jan 2, 2023
Happy 2023! This was the last Quackcast of 2022 and the FIRST Quackcast of 2023! I was recording during 2023 while Tantz, Banes and Pit were still stuck in 2022 because of the time difference between us, so we straddled the years! We had the full crew here of myself, Banes, Tantz Aerine, and Pit Face! We chatted about what we did with comics in 2022, what movies we saw and the issue of “AI Art” and how it impacts actual artists. It was a really cool talk!
Episode 606 - Scary writing!
Oct 24, 2022
How do you write scary scenes for comics? Banes loves horror so he come up with this subject, plus we're coming up to Halloween! Listen to find out what we come up with. How do YOU write scary scenes though, what are your tips and tricks?
Episode 603 - Players, Cads, and "fun" boys
Oct 3, 2022
We are talking about the trope of the Cad, AKA the Player. F***boys are their little scrappydoo kid-brothers, we call them “fun” boys for obvious reasons… It's a fun trope which is often exaggerated for comedic effect but actually comes from a very real thing! There are a lot of famous pop-culture versions though like Barney Stinson, Pepe Le Pew, James Bond, and The Continental.
Episode 602 - It's my turn now bitches!
Sep 26, 2022
What happens when the victim becomes the victor? Most of the time it's like the classic line from The Who “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, typically revolutions (and elections), that promise change don't really deliver, the new people use it as a chance to get revenge on their enemies, take advantage of things the same as the last guys, and do everything they can to cling to power. The true exceptions are rare and special, i.e. Vaclav Havel and the Velvet revolution.
Episode 593 - Risky Business
Jul 25, 2022
The risks of online creative success We live in a wonderful time where you're able to turn your creative passion into a job that can support you just by using freely available online services like YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Patreon, Ebay, Paypal, Etsy, Webtoons etc. You can start with nothing more than your computer or phone and end up with a thriving business based on your passion project. It's not easy, achieving enough success where you can quit your day job still tends to take a lot of work, but once you get there it can be amazing. However, that's not the end of the story unfortunately.
Episode 588 - Revisiting Old Ideas
Jun 20, 2022
Sometimes it's worth revisiting old ideas because you can do them better or explore them deeper. This could be in the form of a full reboot, or it could be as simple as reusing a pose in a panel or using the same theme again like Pixar does with 90% of their output i.e. “coming of age”. Like them you don't need to feel obligated to always do something totally original, revisiting old ideas is a great way to refine them, create better work, or explore different aspects of them you hadn't considered before and put new and interesting spins on things. Consider that Pixar's Turning Red, Encanto, Moana, Coco, The Incredibles 2, Ratatouille, Inside Out, Brave, Onward, and Luca all share the same “coming of age/childhood independence” theme and yet all do it in unique and original ways, exploring different aspects of the idea from all sorts of angles.
Episode 586 - Working with disability
Jun 6, 2022
How do you keep on with your creative output when something happens to you? When you lose function or are impaired in some way, how do you adapt or relearn so you can keep on as you were before? Maybe you can't and have to change to another medium that's a better fit for your abilities? Comic creator Bravo1102 once talked about how he moved from drawing to using action figures to make his comics partially because of his eyesight. My own eyesight has suddenly started to go bad and I'm having to adapt to that, and Tantz tells us how her deteriorating eyesight forced her to work digitally.
